But, as the article notes, no one needs to pay for that sort of thing anymore as even more graphic material is a click or two away online and at no charge. I'm guessing today's middle-school kids know that and so do their parents and older siblings, and I'm surprised the brand has hung on as long as it has.

Posted at 03:48:31 PM

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Back in my younger days, my college and post college days, I saw a number of young men subscribe to Playboy, but not to Penthouse, Hustler, or what have you.

My question, do young men still subscribe to Playboy, or any of those magazines? Who subscribes to any of these magazines? I just looked it up, and found that Playboy still has 1.5 million in circulation, down considerably from the 6 million or so years ago, but still substantial. Who are these people?

Does any poster here know anyone who subscribes to Playboy or other "girly" magazines?

Dear Penthouse Forum,
I am an average male 18 (not years)
Recently, I met this really hot chick on a CoS hook up, she brought along her sister, her Aunt and her English Mastiff, well, you can only Imagine my surprise........

"Who subscribes to any of these magazines? I just looked it up, and found that Playboy still has 1.5 million in circulation, down considerably from the 6 million or so years ago, but still substantial. Who are these people?"

The only people I know that are subscribers are older white males, probably still clinging to their notion of the magazine in a bygone era... my dad and all my uncles all still have subscriptions, which kinda boggles my mind at their age...

And it's funny, my dad still adheres to some of the James Beard recipes he got from Playboy circa 1955-1975, quoting them as if they were gospel... I wonder if that's the reason he still gets it... you know, for the articles ;-)

ZORN REPLY -- Playboy does -- or did, I don't know for sure anymore -- have good articles in it, interesting interviews, innovatives writing and reporting. Not even the elderly could POSSIBLY think they need it as a respectable way to get access to images of naked women, not anymore. The machine on which you are reading this is an instant portal to all the free topless, bottomless shameless imagery a person could ever want.

Bruce L., a lot of young men back in my day swore that Playboy was the ultimate guide to not only martini recipes, but also taste in HI Fi, music, art, and reading material. While I was in the Army, I heard one young man extoll all that was glorious about Pklayboy, and that it was so truthful and honest.

I had to point out that the when I went to a private community college, attached to a high school fthat served as a haven for expelled students, that one of the 18 year old high school students was the playmate of the month one year (I know because I bought my first copy of Playboy when the news went around to check her out). She was the same young lady, but she was described as being a couple of years older, and going to Northwestern, majoring in art history; and that she planned to do her post-grad studies in Paris, etc., a highly sophisticated young lady at least described in Playboy.

This is an atypical perspective, but surely I'm not the only one: The BEST part of Playboy was its "Party Jokes" section! In the mid-1980s I got access to a cache of Playboy magazines from the preceding twenty years or so. I dismissively breezed past the photos, scouring each issue for that one page, and found a treasury of naughty jokes and limericks that always displayed a high ratio of clever wit to vulgarity. An effervescent example of such wordplay that's stuck in my mind for decades:

A peeker at peckers named Jay
Hung out at the YMCA,
But the dick that he saw
Was detective McGraw,
Who hauled the piqued peeker away.

When I was in high school, I took it upon myself to subscribe, counting on the black plastic wrapper to hide the fact from my parents. They got wise, though -- as parents do -- and offered to renew my subscription.

I do recall enjoying the articles. I even cited one among the sources for a paper I wrote for my senior year English class, and my teacher noted it with an exclamation point. The Playboy Interview was held in high regard for its interview subjects and how much they revealed.

Back then the editors truly did make an attempt to feature women who resembled Hef's early vision of the "Girl Next Door." After a while, though, his idea of the girl next door became something that was plastic and empty and usually unnaturally blonde. The photographers followed suit. It became easy to lose interest.

If Playboy were made available in the Google Play Store, I might subscribe again. It's not. I checked.

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